FRESA Y CHOCOLATE

(Strawberry and Chocolate)

Cuba, 1993

Director:
Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabio

Production:
El Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematograficos, with the
support of Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografic, TeleMadrid, La Sociedad
General de Autores y Editores de España, and Tabasco Films; color,
35 mm; running time: 110 minutes. Released in the United States in 1994 by
Miramax Films; Spanish with English subtitles.

Cook, David. A.,
A History of Narrative Film
, 3rd Ed. New York, 1996.

Channan, Michael. "New Cinemas in Latin America" and
"Tomás Gutierrez Alea," in
The Oxford History of World Cinema: The
Definitive History of Cinema Worldwide
, edited by Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, Oxford, 1997.

Articles:

Burton, Julianne, "Film and Revolution in Cuba: The First
Twenty-Five Years," in
Jump Cut: Hollywood, Politics and Counter-Cinema
, edited by Peter Steven, New York, 1985.

The film
Fresa y Chocolate
opened in Cuba in the year 1993 and within the space of a few months
became one of the biggest box-office successes for Tomás
Gutiérrez Alea, one of Latin America's celebrated and
Cuba's most revered filmmakers. The story is set in 1979, a year
before the upheaval of the Mariel boatlift. We meet Diego, a flamboyant,
gay man who spots the beautiful young David at an ice cream shop and sets
out to woo him. "I knew he was a homosexual," Diego later
reveals to his roommate Miguel, "there was chocolate and he chose
strawberry."

Diego manages to lure the supremely heterosexual and devoutly Marxist
David to his apartment with the promise of books, music, and other
accouterments not readily available in Cuba. Diego is immediately smitten
by David, who "has a face of an angel." But David's
only reason for befriending the non-conformist Diego is to do his duty for
the Party by exposing him as a counter-revolutionary, a charge that could
bring a penalty of a decade or more in prison. Here is where the real fun
begins, for with their subsequent visits the issues become cloudy. David
is fascinated by the quirky, educated, and cultured Diego. Moreover, there
is more to Diego than meets the eye. At one point, Diego toasts their new
friendship with contraband liquor from America, dubbing it "the
enemy's whiskey." Is Diego a counter-revolutionary or
isn't he?

Some have criticized the inclusion of obvious gay clichés:
Diego's apartment is cluttered with a dazzling array of eclectic
antiques, he serves Indian tea on exquisite china, he revels in opera, and
struts his

Fresa y Chocolate

stuff in a black tank top and blue Japanese kimono. Yet this is not a
"gay" film. There is sexual tension, but no sex. Notes film
critic Robert Ebert, the film is not "about the seduction of a
body, but about the seduction of a mind." Nor is the film to be
dismissed as simply a light comedy about manners and morality. There are
many issues cleanly woven into this unique tapestry.

Probably most striking to non-Cuban viewers is the film's serious
and sensitive treatment of gay characters in a Cuban film set during a
period in the country's history when anti-gay sentiment and
discrimination ran especially high. For Alea however, it is more a film
about tolerance than it is a call for gay rights. "The gay
subtheme," notes Alea in
Cineaste
, "is merely a convenient illustration. . . ."
Fresa y Chocolate
examines freedom of expression, surveillance, revolutionary watchfulness,
the black market, and the flaws of revolutionary Cuban society.

This may seem radical, arising as it does from the camera of one of
Cuba's most devoted revolutionaries. But not so if one is familiar
with the firebrand tone of Alea's work. The Cuban director has
never shied away from the contradictions in his country's policies.
His submerged criticism of the exigencies of life in communist Cuba has
resonated throughout his films. "It's seen as a communist
hell or a communist paradise," he was quoted as saying by the
Associated Press.
In one scene the two men escape to Diego's rooftop to take in the
beauty of their city. A wide shot pans a beautiful dock with clear waters,
shore birds, and small sea vessels. Diego warns David to enjoy it now
"before it collapses." Clearly, Diego loves Cuba but is
tortured by the fact that its beauty is crumbling before his own eyes.

Fresa y Chocolate
is a splendid piece of filmmaking by one of Latin America's most
celebrated film artists. Alea made his mark in filmmaking with the
production of
El mégano
in 1955. This documentary explored the exploitation of peasant labor in
the charcoal swamps and caused Alea to be arrested by the secret police of
the Batista regime. It was during this turbulent period in postwar film
history that Latin American countries began to loose the stranglehold of
the Hollywood machine to allow the voices of native film artists to be
heard. A number of film movements emerged, including "Cinema
Novo," when young Latin filmmakers took on the tenants of Italian
Neo-Realism and French New Wave to explore issues of colonization,
slavery, economic limitation, misery, and protest, and in the process
created a new Latin American cinema. It was the 1964 dark comedy
Muerta de un burócrata
(
Death of a Bureaucrat
) that helped established Alea as an international film artist.

Fresa y Chocolate
is richly photographed and filled with charming portrayals and very good
acting. And it makes for delightful comedy. David is a University student
studying political science but is quite naive and unsophisticated. During
one of many heated discussions with Diego, David confuses Truman Capote
with Harry Truman for dropping the atomic bomb. He tells Diego that being
gay is "in the glands." Then there is Nancy, Diego's
middle-aged and sexually appealing neighbor, a part-time hooker with
mental baggage who supports herself by selling contraband pantyhose and
cosmetics and who becomes intensely physically drawn to
David—especially when she finds out he is still a virgin.

Alea, who was 69 years old at the time of the shooting of
Fresa Y Chocolate
, became ill and called upon his long-time colleague, filmmaker Juan
Carlos Tabio, to complete the film. In 1996, after the release of his
final film,
Guantanamera
, Alea died of cancer.

—Pamala S. Deane

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